ExtraPenguin

I made a bunch of chenpi* (chimpi, for the Japanese speakers out there) on Tuesday. Scraping off a bunch of pith apparently triggers my Waste Not Want Not 1800s Farmwife instincts, so I did not bin the pith, but rather stored it in a bowl. I then made this pie, except instead of apples, I instead tossed the small pith pieces in with the dry ingredients before adding the liquid (for this, orange juice), replaced the cardamom with cinnamon, and decorated the top with discs from a pair of blood oranges. Om nom nom, tastes delicious. I am such a good cook.

(Baking makes the pith's texture and taste sort of blur into the rest of the pie, so I do not have any texture issues, unlike I'd have with e.g. raisins.)

Also, for those in search of herbal tisanes, chenpi + ginger is a nice flavor combo imo. I put a few chunks of each (I freeze sliced up ginger) in a strainer basket and pour boiling water over it.

* For other people for whom citrus season and sunlight season do not coincide, my Chinese friend told me you can steam then dry (e.g. by gently baking) the peels three times. I've previously just dried my peels and received very orange ones; this batch is definitely darker.

I have been very unexciting with food lately: just making a mix of sweet bean sauce pork and Sichuan boiled beef. However, I got some fish for a change, and on Thursday I made douban yu with rainbow trout! The sauce tastes great, and steaming for 10 minutes was the right choice for the fish. For a repeat, I'd probably make a bit more sauce and add a bit less of the cornstarch mixture.

I also baked an apple pie – it's cooling on the rack now. Recipe:

1 dl sugar
6 dl flour
1-2 tsp cardamom (optional)
5 tsp baking powder
100g margarine
~3 dl liquid (I used 3 and a bit and should've gone with 4, probably)

Mix dry ingredients. Pinch in the margarine until it's evenly in. Add liquid while mixing lightly – do not knead. The dough should be easy to spread on the tray.

Place apple slices and cinnamon on top. Bake at 200°C for at least 30 minutes.

(One can also use the base for blueberries or other berries. If they're bitter, sprinkle another 1 dl of sugar on the top with them.)

For later reference. The menu:
Beef tomato stir fry
Sichuan beef stir fry (the two above will use up one large discounted chunk of meat I have)
Scallion beef stir fry (a repeat)
(maybe something with chicken wings then?)

Sides:
Yuxiang eggplant
Garlic broccoli stir fry
Di san xian (potato, eggplant, paprika)

Updates on prior things:
15-minute noodles tasted excellent. I tried the SeriousEats noodle recipe with nutritional yeast, and while my noodles were a bit better, they wanted to stick to each other but not stay intact. (I suspect the flour we get here is different to what is made in the US.) Something – I think the nutritional yeast – also didn't play nicely with my digestive system and I had unbelievable quantities of gas. If I repeat, I'll try with less yeast.
Cantonese beef rice bowls were nice, albeit a bit boring, I guess. A bit more of a wintry "comfort food" type thing rather than what I enjoy.
Braised turnip bowls I used regular radish with, as I thought that'd be the better substitution. Tastes nice; the Sichuan-pepper infused oil and shiitake mushrooms are what hold this up. (I used oil ready-infused with Sichuan peppers, which I have ... a lot of, rather than use regular oil and toast my limited stash of Sichuan peppers in it like the recipe calls.)
Bean sprout stir fry – I think my beansprouts were a bit old? It ended up tasting not the best but still edible.
Garlic snow peas stir fry – I think my snow peas weren't quite what the recipe calls for, but it's still okay enough. It ended up a bit oily for my tastes with the sesame oil at the end.

Updates from last time: lamb baozi went fine, except that I overfilled them like whoah and should probably just ... categorically aim to make teensy things. Or buy a rolling pin. *g* The fish only made one batch of scallion ginger salmon, which was okay, though the fish sort of disintegrated when I tried to flip it. (Possibly because it was thawed rainbow trout rather than fresh salmon. idk.) With orange chicken, I reduced the amount of sugar and vinegar I put in (to 2/3) and it still tasted quite vinegar-y. I guess I'm more sensitive to vinegary tastes than average?

Then I made pork belly with paprika and wood ear mushrooms, since I realized I had a yellow paprika left over from the pineapple chicken (the only way to get green ones here is in tricolor bags with red and yellow included) and some dehydrated wood ear mushrooms. It was pleasantly crunchy and quick to make, would recommend. Made 3-ish portions.

Next was Sichuan boiled beef over cabbage plus seaweed egg drop soup. The beef is absolutely divine, albeit very spicy. I still have some beef left over, so once I've eaten the boiled beef contents (~4 portions), I'll make noodle soup using the sauce as a base. (Sichuan boiled beef noodle soup? I think I'll prepare the rest of the beef similarly and boil it for a moment. Hmm.) I need some vegetables for that, though – I might brave the city center and go look there for stuff. I need 5-spice powder anyway.

After I'm done, I'll make Beijing duck + mandarin pancakes as a treat. I got two frozen duck breasts and a cantaloupe, and I'll have my feast, dammit! Life is plenty stressful enough. (Note to self: take to defrost 2 days before needed.) Then I'll make bang bang chicken and steamed eggplant. Then maybe something with chicken wings? I got 800g of them today at a discount.

I've been collecting the bones of things I've cooked – I have some small pieces of pork bones, and the chicken legbones. I'll make some bone stock eventually.

Tea update, since I only have a tea icon: I finished up the Xinyang Mao Jian – the last tea from the old batch – and I'm continuing with the new batch of tea. (A ludicrous quantity of tea.) It's all 2019 harvest, so not fresh, but I am pretty sure I'll be able to drink the 1kg+ of it in 5+ months. *goes off to make some more*

( food reports )

Fandom-wise, I am a firm believer in making things ahead of schedule, so I made vexercises #5 (lyrical play: lyrics-inspired imagery, but then set it to a different instrumental) ahead of schedule. Then icontalking ran another song set challenge and I rewatched episode 9 as part of the rewatch parties glymr is hosting (in a more Euro-timezone friendly pre-watch from 21-22 Finland ... and promptly stayed up for the 23-00 Finland rewatch proper of episode 2 *g*), and, uh, I started another one? The song's in Finnish, so I guess it already counts as an instrumental/can't-make-out-lyrics for you. I'm still diddling with the precise numerical values of all the color sliders, but I uploaded a draft vid to Google Drive – I'd be really interested in hearing your reactions! (Concrit welcome, too, esp about how the coloring works.)

( spoilers, if one can call them such )

I am, of course, a ficcer through and through. I wrote a little thing for brush_and_lantern's May theme (Control), posted the penultimate chapter of Every Door a Death, and came up with a new fic idea! In which Shen Wei isn't shot with Zhao Yunlan's gun by a villain, but is rather put in Dixing power suppressing handcuffs by a villain. (Set between episodes 14 and 15.) Because apparently what my brain wants right now is for terrible things to happen to Shen Wei! Estimated length: 20k or less.

( Food! )

CoNZealand e-mailed with a revised programme scheduling thing. The main program will be from 3am to 9am for me; I told them I'd be able to wake up at 7 (and then continue through the lighter load of late items). I am still :/ that it happened this year with NZ, since I really wanted to go, dammit. (I haven't cancelled the plane tickets, but I don't believe the borders will be open in July yet.) Mostly I'm just sad about all of reality being cancelled.

For the other sense of the word "fandom", I've written 8.9k of fic for We Die Like Fen, reveals of which will certainly happen someday soon. Maybe. Hopefully. I've also finished one assignment more, and have decided to place a moratorium on further sign-ups until I finish the final assignment I have.

I went and read some fic in search of Li Qian recs! I found some gems, including one that I won't be reccing on the Li Qian post because it's a Lin Jing fic: Turn Your Watch Back, 9.5k of funny time travel goodness!

Writing-wise, I published chapter 3 of Every Door a Death. Here is an index of Path of Exile unique item quotes for each chapter:
"What is fear but a snuffed torch and death in the wind?"
"The greatest mistakes cause suffering long after they've been made."
"Knowledge brings power, and with power you can grab truth by the throat and shape it as you wish."
(4-7 forthcoming)

Before I go back to the wordcount mines:

1. I procrastinated on exchange fic by doing the first cut of vexercises exercise 4 (side character study – in this case, Li Qian) way ahead of schedule. It still needs coloring, frame-level timing finetuning of some transitions, and maybe some additional effects like mirroring footage, but I have 1 minute and 8 seconds of it. (I was very naughty and added 8 seconds of runtime because it worked better for the song.)

2. Food update: Chongqing chicken failed due to my total lack of dried chili peppers, significant misremembering of how many fresh chili peppers I had, and bad deep frying technique. Deep fried things also didn't reheat well, so probably not repeating that one. As my mandarin orange peels are still drying, I made beef and mushroom (and paprika) stirfry, and succeeded in thickening the sauce with corn starch! It was very satisfyingly clingy.

3. I have rediscovered the adorablest of Guardian bts gifs:
( Read more... )
Will perhaps make this month's brush and lantern fic inspired by that.

It's Long Friday (probably something else in English, but that's the literal translation of what is in my Finnish calendar, and idgaf about Christianity), which means I have the day off. I keep thinking it's Saturday. This is a problem, because space_swap fic reveals are on Sunday, and I keep having to remind myself that they. are. NOT. tomorrow. (The entire exchange scene would be out for my blood if I revealed 24h early, lol.)

I did my shopping today (because bank holidays don't real in retail anymore, unlike when I was but a wee penguin, apparently) and he menu will be the last of the beef lo mein tomorrow morning (having run out of suitable noodles, I turned it into fried rice; works okay enough), then I'll steam some lamb baozi in the afternoon and have vegetarian ramen in the evening, to clear out some vegetables and eggs. Then it's Sichuan dry fried beef time, at long last! Coupled with what bok choy I couldn't fit into the ramen. After that, Chongqing chicken, shredded beef Sichuan style, and tangerine beef, though for the latter two I'll sub out the beef for the deer/horse I have in my freezer. I also got some 30% off vendace that now resides in my freezer, which will be in order after the tangerine beef (or perhaps before it, if my tangerine peels haven't dried enough).

Other things I have for Easter, in honor of the four-day weekend: grain mochi, a bunch of chocolate, red bean buns. If I'm very bored, I'll make my own noodles from scratch.

(If you have recipe blogs to rec, go ahead! I mostly eat East Asian-style food and my pantry is decently stocked for Chinese spices and sauces, plus gochujang and kimchi. I've heard of The Woks of Life, China Sichuan food, Just One Cookbook, and Maangchi.)

The whole cancellation of reality thing also makes me seriously want to buy some sleeve garters. Send help, I'm turning into Shen Wei.

---

Fandom-wise, merit_brush_recs is holding a self-rec amnesty day. I decided to play and rec For No Cradle Lasts Forever, as it's my fixit magnum opus and also I think the cozy fixit mood might be something people would enjoy in these times. (The limit is 4 self-recs, but I'm holding myself to a maximum of 2, and that only if enough other people participate.) I have to say, filling in the "Why are you reccing this?" bit is like pulling teeth at the best of times, and it was even worse for my self-rec. Something about how the question is phrased just makes my brain auto-reply with "Because I liked it." (or, "Because it's self-rec day and it's my magnum opus." for today) and then just gets utterly and completely stuck. I have a few recs to make tomorrow; let's see if trying to rephrase the question into something else mentally would help.

The casefic is now over 25k long! I'm at the penultimate chapter, with at most 1k left of it, and then I have no idea how long the final chapter will be. I'm aiming for 4k, but it might end up a bit shorter. (The penultimate one, conversely, will be longer.) I'll get this done before next weekend, I think, and then I can write my 520 assignment while this one sits.

I posted the Ye Zun character discussion post on sid_guardian! I'm sort of regretting including a question on Ye Zun's redeemability in the discussion starters, as people seem to be mostly ignoring all the other discussion starters and the possibility to rec fanworks in favor of laser focusing on that question. Come rec all your favorite Ye Zun fics/vids/arts/metas/etc?

Continuing on the link theme, two different Tumblr posts on how Web 2.0 social media destroyed everything: connectivity graphs, users as content vs clients.

A music: G.E.M.【鄧紫棋】 – 光年之外 LIGHT YEARS AWAY

A webpage with a list of exercises, browsable by target muscle/part of body. I've been poking around here. Exercises for a muscle divided into lists based on used equipment; useful, if you only have your own body weight or dumbbells in this time of staying the fuck away from gyms.

I made twice cooked fish today! With only 1 chili pepper because while I can and do enjoy spicy food, I am not from Sichuan, and I'm very much out of practice wrt capsaicin. I had to sub garlic scapes with chives, and didn't have dou chi, but it came out okay. I'll probably steam some vegetables as a side for the next meal, then use up the rest of the salmon in bibimbap. I'll also make another batch of red bean buns for the freezer tomorrow. Then it's dry fried beef and figuring out what ingredients I have for the next meals. I should probably use up my enoki mushrooms; they look a bit long-suffering...

(This year looks to be the first Easter I spend alone. It's ... something. The traditional family activity has been taking advantage of the bank holidays to cook. I suppose I'll use my ground lamb meat for something.)

*goes back to writing Robot Rainbow assignment*

We switched to summer time today, and I am just so wiped out. Why. Why must we change the clocks. Why must the Sun exist. Why. Also, it snowed. And I have a headache. The cubital tunnel thing seems to have abated with nerve glide exercises and sleeping with the elbow straight, though!

Foodblogging: made sesame oil chicken soup as advertised in recipe, but with half a napa cabbage julienned in plus mung bean vermicelli. I think I might've overcooked it a little? And I didn't have enough rice wine. It tastes good, though – a bit soft and broad in a way that I can only assume is the sesame oil. I also chopped and froze a whole bunch of ginger and scallions. (Freezing instructions.) I'll be eating the soup until Thursday. Next up is something with rice cakes. (I have some that are technically a month past their best buy, but, whatever. Waste not wank not! [That typo can stay, lol.]) I'll probably go with this recipe, as I have everything save the onions and pork, or this recipe, as I have everything save the cornstarch (and maybe beef, would have to check the freezer). Recipe recs welcome, btw. I also have some red bean buns! (example recipe, though I used a readymade red bean paste and a more basic bread dough. They freeze OK after cooking, btw!)

My tea order (...of the "one-penguin stimulus package for the Chinese economy" magnitude) should be here next week, according to the tracking info! This means I should be able to get some out to mom and misc other relatives before any further internal borders get set up. And I get new tea to drink, which is important.

I haven't touched the casefic yet today, but the next scene in it will be food and eating! The fic is 14.6k long and I think that I'm in the general vicinity of the midway point, so maybe ~8 chapters and 32k? *scurries off for tea-and-fic time*